


London Playground

by Ocearna



Series: The Adventures of a Young Quartermaster [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, the 00's are basically just big children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:29:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ocearna/pseuds/Ocearna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bored 00 is never a good thing. Multiple bored 00's all on leave in London at the same time are the stuff of (Q's) nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	London Playground

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, not brit-picked. Any help with the latter would be appreciated. Enjoy!

Q was in his office and had just started on the latest earwig design – smaller, even less visible to scans – when the alarms started blaring. Q paused, pencil still pressed to the drafting paper, then sighed when his phone lit up. Then he read the alert and his expression pinched into a frown.

‘Agents sighted - London Police’ was written across the screen three times – that meant three separate alerts. Q almost didn’t want to know which three idiots had managed to get themselves in trouble with the London Police. Unfortunately, that was part of his job.

Stepping through his office door, Q was surprised at how busy the control room was, especially for a Tuesday night. There was only one big mission on so half the techs should not even have been at work. Instead, they were all scurrying around like someone had set London on fire, glancing looks at the control desk every few seconds.

“Q!” R called. She was standing at the main desk, displays full of maps and police chatter.

Q strode up to the desk, eyes flickering over all the data. “What’s happening?”

R, calm as always, turned to the displays and pulled up a new screen. On it was two grainy photos and a written description. They looked and sounded awfully like 005, 006 and 007.

“We didn’t want to call you until we were sure, sir,” R said. She sounded almost guilty but her expression was perfectly calm. “An hour ago 006 was stopped by London police, then escaped. He was flagged in their system for being a public nuisance and evading police.” R clicked through a couple of screens until a video started playing. It showed 006 sprinting through a café, vaulting two tables and the counter and running into no less than five customers on his way to the back door.

Q made a mental note to lock 006 out of Q Branch for at least two weeks. Q Branch had too many delicate things lying around for that kind of behaviour.

“Twenty minutes later,” R continued, “005 was flagged for breaking and entering.” This time there was an incident report, not a video. Q just read the summary – 005 had entered an apartment block by the lobby, gone up three floors then broken into a flat only to climb out the window and jump onto the roof of a neighbouring building. The female occupant of the flat had supposedly taken a swing at 005 but missed, and shrieked loudly enough that three other tenants had come running.

Creative, Q admitted, but very unnecessary. Particularly in London while _not_ on a mission.

“And 007?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

R actually winced, though it was barely noticeable. “His report only turned up in our systems ten minutes ago but apparently the police have been tracking him for half an hour. Public nuisance, evading police, car theft and carrying a deadly weapon.”

Q was hardly even surprised. At least nothing had exploded. (It said a lot about how used he was to 007 that explosions were his measure of how big a problem was). Q took a moment to readjust his glasses then stepped up to take over from R at the control desk. “Find everything in the police system on them and wipe it,” he ordered. “And someone call and tell them to stand down.”

“Yes sir,” R replied, then started barking orders at the milling techs. Now Q knew why there were so many – they all wanted to see him tell the 00’s off.

It took only seconds for Q to initiate a conference call with each of the 00’s, beginning a trace on both their phones and the agents’ implanted trackers. Then he sent each 00 a text – “Answer or I’ll ground you for a month.”

Surprisingly, all three answered within six rings.

“ _Sir?_ ” was the first reply – 005. He was young, good at his job and respectful to his superiors. He was one of Q’s favourite agents.

Next came a whined, “ _What?_ ” from 006, the eternal five-year-old.

Then, last to pick up was, “ _Bond_.”

Q glared at the screen in front of him for lack of a better target. Like, say, one of his incredibly stupid agents.

“Would anyone like to explain just what the bloody hell you lot are doing?” Q hissed.

“ _Training exercise_ ,” said Bond, tone blithe. The words themselves seemed practiced. “ _One of us has to hunt down the others and whoever is found first takes over as the hunter_ —“

“You’re playing _tag_!?”

There was a moment of silence. Then 006 started cackling madly.

“ _Training exercise_ ,” Bond repeated.

“ _Well, Q’s not wrong_ ,” 005 argued.

006’s laughter suddenly cut off. “ _Wait. Where’s 002?_ ”

Q could feel his expression darkening as the noise level in Q Branch abruptly plunged. “What about 002?” he asked, his tone venomous.

“ _Nothing!_ ” came 006’s quick reply.

Q just waited. There were a few reasons he liked 005 so much including –

“ _He was playing too,”_ 005 admitted.

\- his inability to keep anything from Q.

(There were rumours that 005 had a crush on the Quartermaster but Q didn’t put much stock in rumours. Most of the time.)

“ _Yes, where is 002?_ ” Bond asked. “ _He’s meant to be hunting us right now_.”

“Just searching now,” Q replied. A few seconds later a new dot appeared on his map, almost on top of another.

“005,” Q said after zooming the map in to check. “002 is across the street. Please get his attention and then I want you all back here within the hour, understood?”

005’s meek, “ _Yes sir_ ,” was welcome. Especially since Bond just hung up.

006, on the other hand, took the chance to complain. “ _But Q_ ,” he protested, “ _we didn’t even get to finish our game! We don’t know who won_.”

Q scoffed. “Considering you’re supposed to be some of MI6’s best _spies_ , I’m claiming the position of impartial judge and saying 002 won since he was the only one to _not_ get caught by the police.” Q started closing down programs. “Now get back here 006, and don’t be late or I might just mention this incident to the Psych department.”

The dead tone across the line when 006 hurriedly disconnected was almost satisfying. Q took a moment to watch the four dots on the screen – 005 and 002 were slowly moving down the street towards MI6, 006 seemed to have caught a cab (hopefully, otherwise he stole a car and that would just make Q’s day even worse) and 007 hadn’t moved, as expected. Then Q closed the map on the control screens and turned to go back to his office. Hopefully he could get the first rough draft of the design done before the 00’s returned and he had to try to explain to them just how stupid they all were.

He might check who was due for a psych evaluation while he was at it. When dealing with 00’s a bit of blackmail always helped.


End file.
